JIMMY AND JUDY 2006 Written and Directed by Randall Rubin and Jon Schroeder (We Share Everything!) Starring Edward Furlong, Rachael Bella, William Sadler, James Eckhouse, Gay Storm and A. J. Buckley.
This is the first review I've ever written that has to start out with a recommendation to see a different movie. If you see a copy of Jimmy and Judy at your local video store, don't rent it until you know if they've also got a copy of Video X. The latter film is sooooooo much better than the former.
Jimmy and Judy is (shockingly!) the story of Jimmy (Edward Furlong) and Judy (Rachael Rubin). Jimmy is a pasty, pudgy 20something with a Holden Caulfieldesque sense of alienation from society. He's back at home with his Mom and Dad after being kicked out of college for videotaping his roommate's suicide. Judy is a pretty high school girl who is, for reasons never explained or defined, desperately unhappy and looking for someone to which she can cling. Jimmy's had a crush on Judy since they were kids and decides this is his moment to reach out to her, which he does by getting revenge on several other kids he sees abusing Judy one day. Judy, while initially repelled by Jimmy, eventually warms up to the only person she thinks loves her or pays attention to her. The movie spends about an hour just defining these characters and their relationship, then Judy runs over a guy with their car. T hat sets the couple on the run and down a slippery path of crime, false hope and murder. Oh, and Jimmy incessantly video tapes everything they do.
This isn't a bad film so much as it is a film in conflict with its basic conceit. The movie is shot hand-held video style, with the camera being passed back and forth between Jimmy and Judy, but unlike The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield, this movie won't make you motion sick. The camera work in Jimmy and Judy is much steadier and more like a traditional film than the herky-jerky visual roller-coaster of those other two. But that's a big problem. The whole point of the hand-held video stuff is to give the story a veneer of realism, a sense that something like this could really happen. But the camera movement and imagery in Jimmy and Judy is so obviously controlled and planned and managed that it ruins any sense that it's something actually happening. Instead of sucking you in, it creates a distance between you and the story. That distance, in turn, let's you see that Jimmy and Judy aren't very realistic characters. They may resemble ordinary-but-troubled folks in theory, but in practice they don't act or talk anything like real people. While Furlong and Bella both give nice performances, you can't ever forget they're performances.
The second half of the movie is also problematic because it stops being about Jimmy and Judy and starts being about all these other low-life, criminal types they run into. The things that occur in the second hour of the story don't really flow out of who Jimmy and Judy are and how they relate to each other, but instead erupt when new characters enter the story and push our lovebirds in one direction or another. It's particularly noticeable when the movie suddenly morphs into a pseudo-documentary about this backwoods, drug dealing, almost-cult leader called Uncle Rodney (William Stadler).
I also have to say the story gets stupider as it goes along. When it's just Jimmy and Judy in the first half, what happens mostly makes sense. When they hit the road and the terrible stuff starts happening, that's no longer the case. Characters start behaving the way the script needs them to behave, even if there's no real reason for it. There's a point in the story where Jimmy by all rights should be killed, but instead he's just beaten up a bit and allowed to live solely because the movie isn't ready to end yet.
For all that, though, Jimmy and Judy isn't an aggressively bad film. Furlong and Bella are good, there's a significant amount of female nudity (including a lot of looks at Bella's bosom) and if you've ever had a bit of Holden Caulfield in you when you were young, you might emotionally connect with this story.
But as I mention at the start, Video X is sooooooo much better than this film. I t's largely the same story but smarter, funnier, more shocking and more real. But if you can't get your hands on a copy of Video X, Jimmy and Judy isn't that awful as a substitute.
This is the first review I've ever written that has to start out with a recommendation to see a different movie. If you see a copy of Jimmy and Judy at your local video store, don't rent it until you know if they've also got a copy of Video X. The latter film is sooooooo much better than the former.
Jimmy and Judy is (shockingly!) the story of Jimmy (Edward Furlong) and Judy (Rachael Rubin). Jimmy is a pasty, pudgy 20something with a Holden Caulfieldesque sense of alienation from society. He's back at home with his Mom and Dad after being kicked out of college for videotaping his roommate's suicide. Judy is a pretty high school girl who is, for reasons never explained or defined, desperately unhappy and looking for someone to which she can cling. Jimmy's had a crush on Judy since they were kids and decides this is his moment to reach out to her, which he does by getting revenge on several other kids he sees abusing Judy one day. Judy, while initially repelled by Jimmy, eventually warms up to the only person she thinks loves her or pays attention to her. The movie spends about an hour just defining these characters and their relationship, then Judy runs over a guy with their car. T hat sets the couple on the run and down a slippery path of crime, false hope and murder. Oh, and Jimmy incessantly video tapes everything they do.
This isn't a bad film so much as it is a film in conflict with its basic conceit. The movie is shot hand-held video style, with the camera being passed back and forth between Jimmy and Judy, but unlike The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield, this movie won't make you motion sick. The camera work in Jimmy and Judy is much steadier and more like a traditional film than the herky-jerky visual roller-coaster of those other two. But that's a big problem. The whole point of the hand-held video stuff is to give the story a veneer of realism, a sense that something like this could really happen. But the camera movement and imagery in Jimmy and Judy is so obviously controlled and planned and managed that it ruins any sense that it's something actually happening. Instead of sucking you in, it creates a distance between you and the story. That distance, in turn, let's you see that Jimmy and Judy aren't very realistic characters. They may resemble ordinary-but-troubled folks in theory, but in practice they don't act or talk anything like real people. While Furlong and Bella both give nice performances, you can't ever forget they're performances.
The second half of the movie is also problematic because it stops being about Jimmy and Judy and starts being about all these other low-life, criminal types they run into. The things that occur in the second hour of the story don't really flow out of who Jimmy and Judy are and how they relate to each other, but instead erupt when new characters enter the story and push our lovebirds in one direction or another. It's particularly noticeable when the movie suddenly morphs into a pseudo-documentary about this backwoods, drug dealing, almost-cult leader called Uncle Rodney (William Stadler).
I also have to say the story gets stupider as it goes along. When it's just Jimmy and Judy in the first half, what happens mostly makes sense. When they hit the road and the terrible stuff starts happening, that's no longer the case. Characters start behaving the way the script needs them to behave, even if there's no real reason for it. There's a point in the story where Jimmy by all rights should be killed, but instead he's just beaten up a bit and allowed to live solely because the movie isn't ready to end yet.
For all that, though, Jimmy and Judy isn't an aggressively bad film. Furlong and Bella are good, there's a significant amount of female nudity (including a lot of looks at Bella's bosom) and if you've ever had a bit of Holden Caulfield in you when you were young, you might emotionally connect with this story.
But as I mention at the start, Video X is sooooooo much better than this film. I t's largely the same story but smarter, funnier, more shocking and more real. But if you can't get your hands on a copy of Video X, Jimmy and Judy isn't that awful as a substitute.